2 octombrie 2015

Religia - o gluma proasta!

"If you criticize religion, then, every so often somebody will say to
you - quite disapprovingly - ‘you may not have faith in god, but you
could show a bit more respect for those people who do’.

And,
you might find yourself thinking ‘well actually, maybe they’re right.
It wouldn’t hurt to show a bit more respect – after all, nobody likes to
be told point-blank that their religion is a crock of delusional
garbage and a force for evil in the world. That, what they call ‘faith’
is merely fear dressed up as virtue. And that their puerile beliefs are a
strait-jacket on the whole of humanity.’
That’s bound to put anybody’s nose out of joint.

So yes, maybe I could show a bit more respect.
The
only fly in the ointment is – I don’t actually feel any respect. I have
tried, I really have, and I feel just terrible about it, but it just
isn’t there.

I suppose I could lie to myself, and pretend
for the sake of people’s feelings – because we all know how delicate and
tender they can be these days.
But, the bold truth is, I don’t actually care about their feelings - at all; not even slightly.
Of
course, I realize that should weigh heavily on my conscience – but
luckily my conscience knows when it is being bullied and manipulated –
so it doesn’t care either.
My conscience knows that there is no
earthly reason for anybody on this planet to respect religion - in any
way. Indeed, purely on the evidence religion itself provides, in such
regular abundance, there is every reason to actively disrespect it to
the point of outright abuse.

And quite frankly, the fact
that religion gets so little abuse, compared to what it really deserves,
I can only attribute to the unbelievable tolerance, restraint and plain
good manners of atheists and secularists everywhere.

So,
if you are a religious person, and if you’re thinking of demanding more
respect for your beliefs, please try to bear in mind that you and your
religion are already getting way more respect than you’ve ever deserved.
Your faith is a joke. Your god is a joke. He’s so absurd, he’s an
embarrassment even to people who don’t believe in him – and he and you
still have it all to prove. So far, no proof has been forthcoming, nor
is it likely to be; as we all well know – so respect, I’m afraid, is out
of the question. The best you can hope for is amused incredulity – and
that would be on a good day.

People say ‘well, you can
only truly understand faith when you have faith’ – which I take to mean
when you’ve suspended your critical faculties and hypnotized yourself
into believing a load of fascist nonsense about your eternal soul, then,
you’ll understand faith – well, I can certainly believe that.

Faith
peddlers like to put themselves beyond question by claiming that their
faith ‘transcends reason’ – the very thing that calls it to account –
how convenient. Yes, faith transcends reason - the way a criminal
transcends the law. The word ‘transcendent’ is very popular with
religious hustlers because they never have to explain precisely what
they mean by it – other than some vague, superior state of
understanding, more profound than ‘mere reason’ – which is crude and
simplistic next to the subtleties and profundities of belief without
evidence.

If you hear a senior clergyman, and you will,
using the word ‘transcendent’ to explain the nonsense he claims to
believe, then you know two things: one, he doesn’t know what he’s
talking about; and two, he doesn’t want you to know what he’s talking
about either.

Faith doesn’t transcend reason at all; faith
sidesteps reason – it runs away from reason because reason threatens
its cozy bubble of delusion. So faith disqualifies reason the way a
Dutch criminal court disqualifies truth and the witnesses – and for much
the same reason.

If you’re a believer, your faith allows
you to adopt a set of beliefs that make absolutely no sense, knowing
that you won’t be measured by whether they make sense, but by the level
of piety that you exhibit in believing them. In other words, your
willingness to deny reality becomes a measure of your virtue.
No wonder religion is so popular.

But
what a price you pay for this ‘virtue’. You’ve been persuaded that
believing in the impossible is your only hope… how did that happen?
And
that your purpose is to worship something beyond your understanding,
defined by and only accessible through, self-appointed intermediaries.
Your thoughts, your words and your identity, are no longer solely yours
to decide; but are subject to the approval of those who have assumed
authority over you – through your faith.
The people who’ve told
you that you were born with something wrong with you - c’mon - in a
state of ‘sin,’ no less. A condition that can only be cured by complete
submission and obedience to them – surprise, surprise – from the moment
you’re born ‘til the moment you die.

And if all this
doesn’t exactly flatter your ego - and why should it - Don’t worry, we
can give it a special name to make you feel better, and persuade you
that you’ve still got some dignity – let’s call it “faith”, and let’s
deem it to be the highest and most noble and profound of all virtues;
and let’s pretend that it comes from within. When we all know, that
nothing about your religion is allowed to come from within – because
that would give you strength and freedom – the two things your religion
wants as far away from you as possible.

Faith is the grip that clergy have over you.
It’s the invisible rope around your neck that pulls you along the road they want you to travel – for their benefit, not yours.
It’s a dead-end word.
It’s a word of bondage.
It’s
a word that lets you believe what you’ve been told to believe -without
feeling that you’ve been told what to believe, but you have – and you
can stop pretending any time you like.
It’s not a virtue - that’s the last thing it is.
It’s an abdication from reality.
It’s a dumb act of self-hypnosis.
It’s a cowardly copout.
It’s gullibility with a halo – and hiding behind it is like pretending to be an invalid.

So, I don’t really understand exactly what it is that I’m supposed to respect.
It
seems to me, I’d need to be some kind of moral contortionist to respect
something that noxious – something that depends for its existence on a
closed-mind – and it is clearly dragging humanity in the wrong
direction; giving us false ideas about ourselves, and about the nature
of reality.

I feel, if I respected that, I’d be needlessly
contributing to the stupidity and ignorance of the human race – and
that is one thing I don’t want on my conscience; no offense.
Peace."
-Pat Condell